


Soothe

by LoversAntiquities



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, M/M, Tattoo Artist Castiel, Tattooed Dean, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7047373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoversAntiquities/pseuds/LoversAntiquities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not the first tattoo Dean’s ever gotten, not by a longshot; the work below his navel and the ink decorating his arms is proof enough of that. But he’s never gotten something this big before, never something with as much hands on involvement, this much effort in just getting the planning done. For the last month, he’s been in and out of Sky City Tattoos chatting up one of their artists, a college student by the name of Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soothe

It’s not the first tattoo Dean’s ever gotten, not by a longshot; the work below his navel and the ink decorating his arms is proof enough of that. But he’s never gotten something this _big_ before, never something with as much hands on involvement, this much _effort_ in just getting the planning done. For the last month, he’s been in and out of Sky City Tattoos chatting up one of their artists, a college student by the name of Castiel.

Fake name or not, his portfolio is one of the most impressive out of anyone Dean has seen in the city, most of his works some cross between watercolor and odd geometric shapes, along with hyper realistic three-dimensional tear-aways, all exposing either organs or living creatures, one even a gathering of butterflies breaking their way through to the surface. They’re beautiful, every one of them. It doesn’t hurt that Castiel isn’t so bad on the eyes either, all blue eyes and sharp cheekbones, arms and chest dyed every color imaginable, even down to the assortment of roses draped around his neck, both live and dead petals hidden beneath his clothes.

Not that Dean has been paying _attention_ —but with the tank tops and the low cut shirts Castiel wears, it’s hard not to gawk.

Castiel is manning the register when Dean walks in that afternoon, glasses hanging low on his nose, dark hair just as windswept as ever. Dean swallows and clutches his satchel tighter, steadies his breath. He can do this. He’s dealt with new artists before—just not artists that make his blood pressure rise at the mere _thought_ of them. Crushing is an understatement; it’s a downright miracle Dean’s face doesn’t turn red every time he walks in the shop.

“Winchester,” Castiel says from the counter when Dean approaches, his voice soothing in a way it shouldn’t be. From a radio jockey, maybe, but not from a tattoo artist in a shop beside the Ralphs. “Can’t say I wasn’t looking forward to seeing you again.”

Dean chuckles under his breath, somehow managing to keep his composure. “We still on for today?” he asks. The appointment has been marked on his calendar for the last week, each red x counting down the days until he could end up there, _finally_ , with Castiel’s hands on him. One day Dean will ask him out—preferably when he’s not about to have a needle driven into his skin for the next few hours.

“Your room’s ready and waiting,” Castiel say and thumbs around the corner to a purple-painted corridor lined with framed flash and classic rock posters. “Unless you’re having second thoughts. I already have your deposit.”

“You’ll get the rest too,” Dean adds; hopefully his smirk hides his insecurity. Whether Castiel knows the effect he has on him, Dean doesn’t know. Doesn’t bother to ask when Castiel calls for another artist—Jessica, apparently—to take the register. They’re slow today; Dean can’t hear the whir of equipment when they walk past some of the empty rooms, some days slammed to the wall with customers looking for their next addition. “Never heard it this quiet,” Dean comments, nonchalant.

“People are still out of town for the holidays,” Castiel shrugs. “They’d rather go to the beach than stay with the likes of us, don’t you think?”

Dean follows him into his cubicle, a large mirror framed on the wall both above and beside a leather bench, a bookshelf on the opposite side filled with nothing but flash books and shelves upon shelves of portfolios and instructional guides. Castiel has already set up his desk, several rows of empty small cups sitting on a rolling cart next to bottles of black, white and green ink, along with an entire roll of paper towels. It smells clean, antiseptic—Dean lets it soothe him while Castiel straps on a pair of gloves from the box on the table.

“You can set your stuff on the bench,” Castiel says, his back turned; he has even more ink there, all wings and fire and more colors than Dean can comprehend. But it works, it _fits_ , like it’s part of Castiel’s body bleeding through to the surface, like it was there all along. “Make yourself comfortable. You’ll be here for a while.”

Right, tattoo. Dean’s getting a _tattoo_ , he’s not here to stare at attractive men. _Extremely_ attractive men with thighs he’d like to get between. With a steadying breath, Dean sets his bag down and pulls his shirt over his head, setting it aside. His shoes go too, leaving him oddly exposed in the small room.

It’s Castiel’s turn to stare when he finally turns around, eyes raking over Dean’s body appreciatively, a smirk upticking his lips. “Whoever got their hands on you before me was lucky,” he remarks, meeting Dean’s eyes. Dean flushes and folds his arms, covering the vine-wrapped hourglass tattooed on his sternum. “You look tense.”

“Just… jitters,” Dean manages, going for indifferent. His voice betrays him though, and Castiel only quirks a brow when Dean sits on the folding chair bolted to the floor, facing the exit. Closing his eyes, he takes in the sounds from the shop, the low thrum of the top twenty countdown playing from the overhead speakers, Castiel closing the curtain hanging over the doorway, the faint smell of incense pouring from a candle in the corner of the desk. Coupled with the steady whir of a personal fan, Dean lets himself fall lax and feels the tension bleed from his bones.

At least, until Castiel touches the back of his neck, latex cold against his skin. “If you’re not ready today, we can always reschedule,” Castiel offers, a final out. Dean shakes his head—or, attempts to—and turns to where he can watch Castiel fill the ink cups with multiple colors, arranging them from light to dark on the hand cart. Dean’s gotten used to the smell, more calming now compared to the silent dread he endured during his first few sessions. Or, maybe it’s the way Castiel treats him, from their prior discussions to now, just the two of them behind a black curtain, secluded from the rest of the world.

Castiel wipes down a large swath of Dean’s back before he begins, Dean shivering with the touch, even if it is indirect. “Cold?” Castiel asks, chipper about it.

Dean just huffs and wraps his arms around himself. “’S long as it’s not ice,” he retorts, earning a quiet laugh from Castiel. “…Kinda been looking forward to this.”

For a long moment, Castiel stays quiet while he takes his stencil from the desk and sets it over Dean’s skin, smoothing down the wrinkles until the purple ink is firmly where it needs to be. “Go see how it looks,” Castiel says after he removes the paper, setting it aside. For the first time, standing in front of the mirror, Dean finally gets an idea of what he’s been looking forward to for his entire life. Parts of it don’t make sense—Castiel’s hand will smooth out the seemingly misplaced lines—but for the most part, it’s a jagged, patchy wing jutting from his shoulder blade and breaking through his back in several places. Feathers escape from holes, entire portions of the wing burst through, all giving the appearance that it’s trapped and attempting to break free.

_It’ll be worth it_ , Dean tells himself for the fifteenth time; he gives Castiel the thumbs up and returns to the chair, drapes himself across it to where his face is pressed into the headrest, facing where Castiel is closest to him.

Just before Castiel pulls a pack of sterile needles from a desk drawer, he cards a gloved hand through Dean’s hair, mussing up the short strands at the top. “Relax,” Castiel breathes, more of a suggestion than an order; still, Dean relaxes with the words and lets Castiel mold him where he needs to be, just where Castiel wants him.

Dean is talkative when the needle finally pierces his skin, Castiel working the line art with deft fingers. He always is, sometimes to the annoyance of his other artists; but it calms him, keeps him rooted through the worst of the pain. Dean mentions his brother multiple times, his own job as a tutor in the university across town, about how spring break has been his only week off in a _long_ few months. Castiel matches him with gossip from the shop and a wild tale about visiting his brother’s lake house last week, all during which Dean struggles to keep from moving while he laughs. The initial outline isn’t bad, but anticipation and adrenaline still course through him, leaving him anxious in Castiel’s hands. All through it for the first hour, Castiel keeps him calm, stopping to wipe away blood and stray ink every few seconds, revealing fresh skin underneath.

It’s a rhythm Dean falls into with ease, the pain dulled by the balm Castiel rubs onto the freshly marred flesh, soothing the ache for a short while before he’s back at it again. “How much of the shading do you want done today?” Castiel asks as he finishes up with a particularly painful section of his hip, a feather falling just below his waistband where Castiel has pulled it down.

They’re small areas, really—the largest portion is maybe the size of his palm, the others smaller. “If you can finish in a day, we could try that,” Dean says. He stretches momentarily while Castiel changes out his needles, hissing with the tender pinch it creates.

“I’d hate to see you leave and never come back,” Castiel says, feigning forlorn; Dean shoots him a grin and resettles himself, one arm under his head. His neck is already cramping, but he wants to watch Castiel move, wants to study just what he has on his arms and under his tank top where it hangs loose, exposing fresh skin Dean wants to study with his mouth. “You might need some touchups, depending.”

“I’ll come back whenever you want,” Dean blurts before he can catch himself. Castiel laughs despite Dean’s embarrassment, his smile lighting something in Dean’s chest that feels like admiration.

“Flirting with me won’t get you a discount,” Castiel says, close enough to his ear that Dean can feel the warmth of his breath. “But, if you’re asking me out, I get off at ten.”

“Deal,” Dean chuckles, soft.

After that, his awareness begins to slip. Shading is never his favorite part of _any_ appointment, and the longer he lays there, the more he feels himself drift, pain becoming a living entity through his body. Their previous conversation—about college majors, about Castiel’s backpacking trip through Asia, he doesn’t remember—lulls into silence, Dean more concentrated on breathing than trying to string a sentence together. He probably couldn’t even if he tried, at least until Castiel stops trying to bore a hole into his shoulder.

He doesn’t ask for a break, not even when Castiel offers, his tone growing more worried as the hours go on. Dean can do this, though—he’s sat through worse, his sternum having taken more of a toll on him than something this minor. But it had been closer to the bone then and he could actually watch what the woman had been doing to him; now, Castiel is dying his skin out of sight, the needles pressing into him intensifying the ache the longer they go. He tenses every time Castiel draws away, relieved when he covers the abused skin with balm before returning again, restarting the cycle, for hour upon hour.

He’s almost comatose by the time Castiel wraps up, unshed tears forming in the corner of his eyes. Castiel doesn’t talk to him once he’s finished, just strips off his dirtied gloves and replaces them with a fresh pair, number two out of countless others Dean hadn’t noticed. The moan he stifles is almost shameful, Castiel rubbing Aquaphor over the inflamed skin until the stinging stops, at least temporarily. Later, he’ll have to do this himself and whine through it for days until it starts to peel.

But it’s done—and he’s nowhere near calm. “You sure you’re okay?” Castiel asks for the dozenth time, close enough to Dean’s side for Dean to feel the heat coming off him, blazing despite the chill from the desk fan.

Dean looks up to him through hazy eyes, at the concern in Castiel’s face, growing deeper by the second. “Talk me down,” Dean manages, barely audible over the music playing on rotation. It’s never been like this before, this need to be touched, to be _consoled_. “Need to…”

And Castiel doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even ask. He sits on the stool beside Dean’s chair for a long while, simply petting through Dean’s hair and letting the fan blow on Dean’s back, until the constant shivers dull and Dean can breathe again, can actually feel something other than pain. Occasionally, Castiel blots away welling blood, simply letting his skin breathe before he’ll eventually cover it in the plastic bandage Dean has grown to despise.

“We probably should’ve done this in steps,” Castiel says after a while, the first words he’s spoken since Dean came back to himself, now purely content to let Castiel touch him at will: his hair, his neck, just along his nape, anywhere. “This may have been too intense.”

“Prob’ly,” Dean slurs, eyes fluttering closed. “This ’s nice, though.”

Castiel snickers, low, before he pulls away, going for the bandage. “You did good,” he commends, and Dean lights up from the praise, a faint red blush spreading across his chest and up his neck. If Castiel notices, he doesn’t speak a word of it. “I’ve had some clients back out halfway through before. Mostly older men, much bigger than you.”

Dean laughs, immediately wincing. Castiel wraps him up and tapes the bandage to his skin once Dean sits up, blood rushing to his head. But it’s done—he did it, he survived some of the worst pain he’s intentionally put himself through. And the result in the mirror is spectacular, even through the gloss of the wrap; green, white and black feathers spread across his skin and down his back, the wing almost sentient, _alive_ as it unfolds from his shoulder blade and through his midsection, ending at his lower back. “I could marry you,” Dean says, genuine through the pleasant hum running through him and the sluggishness in his bones.

“Not on a first date,” Castiel says, close in the scant space of his cubicle. He sidles up behind Dean and drapes his arms around Dean’s waist, hands pressed to the hourglass and hiding the vine-covered wings. “Maybe second. I’m interested in getting to know what other tattoos you have.”

Dean burns hotter with the implication, and Castiel hides a smirk into his nape. “You get off at ten, right?”

At his back, Castiel hums, cobalt eyes alight. “For you? Any time.”

Dean doesn’t hesitate, simply covers Castiel’s hands with his own and lets him drift closer. This—he can take this and run with it, for as long as he needs. “Then take me home,” he says, a whisper. “Wanna see you too.”

Castiel hums, lips to Dean’s neck. “Anything for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Back in November, I finally got my coverup done on my back and about three hours in, I was going through exactly what Dean felt here. Except I didn't have a hot guy to pet my hair, so I just kinda laid there and tried not to cry. WHY DO TATTOOS HURT SO BAD.
> 
> But yeah, I can't write other things so here's some tattoos!
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://tragidean.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/loversantiquity).


End file.
